Green World: Prof. Peter Terezakis • OART-UT 1057 • NYU Tisch

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Climate and Security

The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues. (FORTUNE Magazine) By David Stipp February 9, 2004 (FORTUNE Magazine) – Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it. The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade--like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies--thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power. More from Fortune Will Mmmhops be a hit? NBA confirms L.A. Clippers sale to ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer FBI and SEC probe into Carl Icahn and golfer Phil Mickelson FORTUNE 500 Current Issue Subscribe to Fortune Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall's California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia--it's easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in abrupt climate change. Climate researchers began getting serious

Imagining the Unimaginable: Abrupt Climate Change.
A report prepared for the Pentagon in 2004

Climate Denier Heads Trump Climate Investigation Panel

MANAGING CASCADING SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE APRIL 22, 2020 | FP ANALYTICS SPECIAL REPORT In 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense identified climate change as a key threat to global stability that is contributing to poverty, food and water scarcity, environmental degradation, and the weakening of already fragile states. These compounding factors have also spurred increased voluntary and forced migration. That was a decade ago. The DoD’s assessment reflects what has since become increasingly acknowledged among security experts, international institutions, and climate scientists: that climate change is a threat multiplier that has no boundaries. Rising global temperatures, and the attendant growing stress on natural resources, particularly water, and agricultural productivity, are threatening global security at multiple levels

The National Security Implications of Climate Change
Changing patterns of precipitation give rise to crop failure and drought. A hungry man is an angry man.” — C.D. Glin.

Great Climate Migration - NYT

The Center for Climate and Security (CCS), a non-partisan institute of the Council on Strategic Risks, has a team and distinguished Advisory Board of security and military experts. CCS envisions a climate-resilient world which recognizes that climate change threats to security are already significant and unprecedented, and acts to address those threats in a manner that is commensurate to their scale, consequence and probability. In light of an increase in threats to security exacerbated by the effects of a changing climate, CCS develops policies that will adequately manage unavoidable effects on security and help to avoid effects on security that would be unmanageable or unpredictable. This includes developing robust policies that seek to reduce the scope and scale of climate change in order to avoid unmanageable or unpredictable threats. CCS also develops robust adaptation policies that seek to manage the unavoidable, or “locked in” threats to security resulting from a changing climate.

Time Magazine: Climate Change Is the ‘Mother of All Risks' to National Security

International Military Council on Climate and Security A growing number of militaries and national security communities around the world are concerned about a changing climate – including the very real risks it poses to global stability, conflict and military missions. The IMCCS is an international network of these individuals that seeks to anticipate, analyze, and address the security risks of climate change

ClimateChange_Security_Poster

 

 

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